Dispatches From the Living Room of Sodor, Part One

February 21, 2013

But first, a WHAT DA FUQ IS THIS FAQ:

Q. WHAT DA FUQ IS THIS?

A. Once upon a time, back in 2007, I purchased a train table and some Thomas the Tank Engine sets for Noah. And then proceeded to go on a three-day bender of obsessive track building. You know, for "my kid." For his "benefit." In order to prove that I was not losing my mind at all, not even a little bit, I posed a bunch of trains and cars around the track and wrote a little photo-essay about them. The trains all cursed a lot and Sir Topham Hat was an alcoholic.

Q. YOU'RE WEIRD.

A. Oh, you don't even KNOW, Janet. You don't even KNOW. From there, things got even weirder. Our train table started to become a catch-all surface for toy clutter, and Noah tended to bring other non-Thomas toys into his train play, like dinosaurs. I found this innocent bit of plaything dissonance to be HILARRRR and made up another story about it all.

A. Well. No. Noah moved on to Legos and Ezra never really got into Thomas. I packed up the tracks and trains at some point with the idea that the train table could become a Lego table but that didn't really happen. But! I have this whole new fresh kid now who seems to like choo-choos and doesn't even know we have Thomas trains, soooo....

Q. OH MY GOD, PLEASE TELL ME YOU'RE NOT GOING TO BUST OUT TOYS FOR YOUR CHILDREN TO PLAY WITH SOLELY TO GIVE YOURSELF SOME GODDAMN BLOG FODDER, YOU EXPLOITATIVE MONSTER.

A. Meanwhile, in the Isle of Sodor...

Chaos rules the land, and has for quite some time.

The trains tried to warn the Sodorites that planes weren't as safe as railway travel and that a vintage Micro Machines airport from eBay was a bad idea, but nobody listened. "Look at how perfectly the drawings of lakes line up," the people said instead. "What are the fucking odds? That's kind of weird, right?"

So many planes crashed into the lake that they don't even sink anymore. They just pile up. And that dock isn't fooling anyone.

They know who's still under there.

That way, there be dragons. Don't go that way.

Eventually the trains and the Sodorites and even Sir Topham Hat packed up and fled the isle for probably the last time. If you ask why they'll just ask if you've ever read that Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs book.

So I guess it was something like that, then.

But! Then!

A new class!

A new chance!

Everything old was new again! Trains are awesome! Windmills are the new Elmo!

SOMEBODY even remembered how to make a circular track, HINT NOT CEIBA THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

Things were actually going so well that Sodor's previous master civil engineer was brought back in and agreed to make everything even more awesome.

(Though the planned track expansion out to the minivan lame-o's in the suburbs was quickly scrapped as not feasible, totally boring.)

Coming Up Tomorrow, Because This Is Long & Ridiculous Enough Already: Dispatches From the Living Room of Sodor, Part Two aka 28 Minutes Later aka Now I Remember Why I Never Brought the @#(&ing Trains Out Of the @#$&ing Basement Before

Yay! I didn't ask for Sodor, but I am so happy to see moar! Your stories kept me amused for many years before I had a kid of my own. Now I have sat through hours and hours of Thomas videos, and have been on the fence about a train table (too little space; my little girl gets very into trains once every few weeks at most), I take especial glee in your tales. Keep them coming!

Boy #1 was Thomas/Sodor crazy and many expensive sets and pieces were purchased so he could reenact every episode of the TV show. Boy #2 played with them, but, meh. Boy #3 would ask me to build complicated track layouts for him so he could rip them apart 10 seconds later saying "a tank blowed it up". I just unloaded most of the official brand items on Ebay for a decent amount. I even sold two wood Topham Hatts for $5 each but they didn't have canine imprints on them.

Boy #1 was Thomas/Sodor crazy and many expensive sets and pieces were purchased so he could reenact every episode of the TV show. Boy #2 played with them, but, meh. Boy #3 would ask me to build complicated track layouts for him so he could rip them apart 10 seconds later saying "a tank blowed it up". I just unloaded most of the official brand items on Ebay for a decent amount. I even sold two wood Topham Hatts for $5 each but they didn't have canine imprints on them.

LOVE! My 2 nephews were Thomas obsessed and then out grew it (at the ages of 6 & 8), and so we inherited about 6 years worth of swag. Danny was interested.... then not... then watched the Polar Express, became obsessed with it and all things trains, rediscovered the set, inherited the Track Master Thomas, and now all we read watch and play is G*dD**n THOMAS. So its nice to laugh at it. :) (Its a very serious subject at our house.)